


And in the Darkness

by JadedCoral



Category: Sherlock (TV), TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, M/M, Psychological Drama, Romance, makeshift family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-11-27 02:23:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/657014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadedCoral/pseuds/JadedCoral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of the war a disease of the mind starts to spread. Thorin struggles to bring peace both to his kingdom and his guilt-ridden mind, while Bilbo finds an unlikely ally in Smaug as they set out to find the cause of the disease and how to end it. Eventual Bilbo/Thorin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya! This is my first time posting here and I feel the excited kind of nervous. It's like starting at a new school, oh my. You can bully me in the comment section below. Or be nice to me. Either way, I hope you enjoy the story.

No dwarf had ever been much of a cultivator, or a gardener, or even a breeder. They were a race that lived far under the roots of plants, deep inside rock where the lack of sunlight gave life to things one wanted to get rid of rather than to encourage their growth.

Yet Thorin Oakenshield remembers a time of harvest, when the crop was plenty and his reaping never ending. He started at sunrise, and worked all day till it set with beautiful hues of red and gold, setting his world on fire. From the ashes birthed fertile earth, forever sprouting more for his Orcrist to cut down.

Drenched in sweat and exhausted by hard work, Thorin shouted at his nephews for neglecting duty by jesting around a pale stranger to their kind, tales about the Mines of Moria from where it claimed to come fresh in their minds.

He remembers giving up when the two boys lied down to rest on the ground, their hands searching out for one another, never quite getting there, so close but so out of reach as tiredness took them and they fell asleep.

Thorin remembers a dull ache eating him from the inside. Perhaps he had been working too hard. Perhaps there comes a time for every farmer to hit the reality that with too much reaping you will inevitably run out of benefits. But Thorin is a dwarf, and dwarves had never excelled in quitting. Always too stubborn. Always too greedy.

Yes, Thorin remembers thinking of planting red flowers on the exact same spot where the pale stranger stood, in memory of the one his heart had chosen to grieve for. And the stranger had helped him moisten the soil with everything he had.

And he remembers thinking, ‘ _this is enough_ ,’ as gravity had him on his knees.

‘ _I can rest now_.’

* * *

“He has awoken!” A voice spoke, penetrating every layer of tiredness. Thorin’s warrior instincts knew it came from somewhere near even though it sounded like a dying echo to his ears.

To voice his discontent Thorin tried to groan, but the usual deep grumble that resonated through his throat turned into a wet cough instead. It was something painful and awful, making him feel like he was dying as much as it made him realise that he was still very much alive and bound to mortality.

“He is delusional,” said another voice, calm and emotionless even when their hand pressed against Thorin’s breast, spreading a numbing kind of warmth with the touch. Thorin tried to open his eyes to see, but the darkness persisted.

“But alive,” argued the other. “I trust you to ease his pain while I go tell the good news to others.”

“ _Trust_ me,” mused the voice left behind as the other went. “I think not. In pain and discomfort you shall remain, King Under the Mountain. That would probably be your wish could you open your eyes.”

But he couldn’t. There were but two senses in use; touch alarmed with pain and hearing picking up words he did not care for. A blessing, really, as the thought of pleading them to stop floated in and out of his mind until he returned into the land of dreams.

* * *

Thorin drifted in and out of consciousness, his dreams forgotten as soon as he recognised the reality of wakefulness, and his moments of reality blurred with lack of senses to grasp a solid hold of it. Voices came and spoke, using words that oftentimes made little sense to him, like foreign tongues speaking in a language of their own.

These moments came and went, though how often and in what numbers, Thorin could not keep up with. But of two things he was certain; he was alive and he was being healed. King Under the Mountain he had been called, meaning that he lied at the end of his journey as a victor. Barely alive, but undoubtedly a king with a homeland to offer his kindred.

It was enough a notion to have him withstand the pain and failings of his body.

Until the day came he could finally open his eyes.

His surroundings were dimly lit, the dancing shadows of a few candles filling him with familiarity. A cloth seemed to serve as his roof and ceilings. A tent, then. Not a preferable choice of lodgings, but he felt little need to moan about it. Then he saw the first face lean over him since forever ago, and immediately felt like he should not have gained consciousness at all.

“Urgh,” he managed to say with his dry throat.

“King Thorin,” said Thranduil with a dryness of his own. “I welcome you to the world of the living.”

“And I,” Thorin struggled to speak, his futile attempt to swallow saliva ending up being just a painful movement of muscles, nothing more. “I unwelcome you from my kingdom.”

The elven king stared on, unmoved and unmoving by his lack of welcome. Eventually his gaze shifted as he seemed to have tasks other than staring down at Thorin to perform.

“You are unfit in every possible way to make such claims,” said the elf with his back turned to him.

“I am puzzled as to why I would wake up to your presence in the first place,” Thorin admitted.

“I am here to heal you.” Having shuffled about the elven king returned to his side and sat down on a stool placed beside his makeshift bed of fabrics and furs. “Here, let us two share a glass of wine.”

As proposed, Thranduil held out a glass filled with red liquid for Thorin to accept. He tried to lift his hand in order to take it, but the dwarf felt almost immobile, sudden fear spreading through him when his hand refused to move by his will. It was like his body was made of the heaviest of metals, weighing too much to lift or to move.

It was only when Thranduil asked without a twitch to his expression, “Are you in need of my assistance, Master Dwarf?” that Thorin got enough strength from pure stubbornness to haul himself a little further up his pillows and to take the glass of wine without a sign gratitude.

Taking a gulp and making a point not to relish the feel of liquid caressing the insides of his throat, Thorin gave the elf a glare. “I will never be in need of your assistance.”

The elven king said nothing, only sipping his portion of the wine in his own pace.

“Not now nor till kingdom come,” Thorin continued. “And you would do well to understand that it is not a request when I tell you to leave my lands.”

“I will not leave because you tell me to,” Thranduil said, unafraid of Thorin’s lack of hospitality. “I will leave when I myself deem it to be the right time to do so.”

“And when might that be?” Thorin asked with anger lacing his words.

There was still and eerie lack of emotion in everything the elven king did, his voice not mocking but so monotonic that it was as if he had no care in the world in the worst way imaginable as he said, “Until you are well.”

“I never asked you to heal me,” Thorin growled now, hands shaking involuntarily as sparse blood began to run extra laps in his heat. “All I asked was for you to leave.”

An uncharacteristic exhale escaped the elf beside him, sounding almost like sigh of frustration. Small victories. “Your words and heeds mean nothing to me dwarf, for you are nothing but an object of negotiation between a third party member and myself.”

“Nonsense! No dwarf would stoop so low as to negotiate with an elf on this matter!”

“Not a dwarf, no,” Thranduil agreed, sipping away while letting his gaze wander elsewhere for a moment.

“Not a dwarf,” Thorin echoed, his tight grip on the emptied glass growing lax enough for the object to drop onto the ground. His body felt impossibly heavy again, eyelids even more so and too late did he think the obvious. The cursed elf had added something extra into his wine.

Just then, as his vision was starting to blur, the corner of Thranduil’s mouth quirked, as if he was trying to smile without quite remembering how to. “He does know how to beg,” said the elven king with the kind of humour that made their world a twisted place.

And if resentment was what kept Thorin alive, then may the gods forge him into an immortal.

“Now sleep, King Under the Mountain. I much prefer your company that way.”

For the life of him, Thorin could not fight the darkness that enfolded him.

* * *

Time heals all wounds, some say. Thorin too was eventually able to stand on his own two feet again, still aching and covered with scabbing wounds and cuts, but not crippled beyond repair. With Thranduil he had had an unspoken agreement that they got along better while not speaking to one another, and without any words of departure, the elven king had wasted no time leaving after seeing the results of his work bear fruit.

Thorin did not nor was he expected to offer any kind of gratitude at the elf’s retreating back. They just went their separate ways, continuing on living their lives as kings.

Steeling himself, Thorin took a deep breath, swallowed the pain that lingered and pushed the curtains serving as doors to his tent out of his way. The first thing to greet him was blinding sunlight and the reek of a battle field left filled with rotting corpses.

The stench made his stomach lurch.

“Balin!” Thorin called out as he spotted the elderly dwarf nearing his tent, watching him take notice of his king, a look of joy and relief spreading through his face at the sight of him on his feet.

“By my beard!” Breathed the dwarf as he came to stand beside Thorin. “It is good to see you back in health, my king! I am ashamed to admit we shared a moment of despair thinking you would not survive.”

“Your despair was hardly unfounded, my friend. I did feel like I was about to pass from this world for a moment.”

“It is good then that you decided to linger,” Balin laughed while taking good care to pat his shoulder as gently as he could.

“Indeed,” Thorin agreed, unwilling to remind himself that it was an elf that pulled him back into the world of the living. “What of the others? Have they been as fortunate as us two?”

“They have indeed.”

“And my nephews?” Thorin pressed on, a gnawing sort of worry filling him, like an unpleasant memory at the back of his mind that he could not coax out for viewing. The drop of Balin’s smile did nothing but increase his unease.

“Breathing.” Was the only thing the dwarf said, his voice holding no guarantee that it would continue to stay that way.

A wave of weakness threatened to take his legs from underneath him. Thorin had to fight down the plea that Balin take him to them as much as he had to fight to preserve whatever strength he had left to keep on standing. No, he was a rightful king now, expected to lead his people through the aftermath of war and beyond. Breathing meant alive, and alive meant that his nephews were being taken care of.

For now he had to lead.

“The stench of the battlefield is awful. Is something being done to it?” Thorin asked, trying to push his worries aside.

“We have collected our own dead as have the elves and men,” Balin answered. “That there would be a sea of orc corpses. We would have cleared the fields faster but our numbers are too few.”

“We risk spreading disease the longer it takes to clear them. I trust you to make haste with the task.”

“Aye, my king.”

“Good,” Thorin nodded, taking note of the burning piles in the distance. It was a clear day, but against the sky raised heavy, black pillars of smoke that did nothing but aid the unpleasantness of the air he breathed. Still, fire was purifying in its own way, and before long, the air would clear back to the way it was supposed to be.

“And what of the mountain?” He barely dared to ask. If their numbers were few, there would be a risk of it being taken.

“Under our rule with the aid of the dwarves who came when you called,” said Balin reassuringly before turning his back to him as if dismissing his king in favour of continuing on with whatever tasks he was performing before the distraction. “I promise all is as well as it could be and being taken care of with the best of our capacity, so worry not, my king.”  

And to say the last word with a knowing smile, Baling turned around once more, his words gentle as he spoke. “You will find them inside the mountain, in the old medical room nearest the main entrance. Go to them.”

Thorin wasted no time arguing, going as fast as his injured body allowed him.

* * *

He found his nephews sleeping on a large bed, both sickly pale where the wounds and scars and bruises didn’t colour their skin. They looked a frightening kind of peaceful, and Thorin understood why all Balin had been willing to say was that they were breathing. It seemed to be the only proof of their survival.

“The elves did all they could to heal them,” Dori conversed while busying about the room, organizing medicines and piling up bandages for easy access did anyone come in in the need of them. “We moved them here from the tents after they said nothing else could be done.”

“The elves,” Thorin muttered with a low voice tinted with self-hatred while gently stroking Fili’s hair. He did not want to owe the lives of his relatives to the pointy eared beings.

“Aye, can’t say I understand either, but they approached with persistence,” Dori told him. “We feared for your lives so we didn’t stop them. A right decision, that, it would seem.”

“What became of our burglar?” Thorin asked suddenly, an anger rising in him as he remembered Thranduil’s words. The elves had not given their aid out of kindness, he knew. If he and his nephews had been nothing but objects of negotiation, then he owed no gratitude to the elves, but rather a non-dwarf ally.

And his anger was just, for he didn’t dare think what their burglar had promised in return. Too many times had the halfling saved his life, even after Thorin had severed all bonds of friendship that had ever existed between them. The thought added to the already heavy load on his heart.

“No one has seen a glimpse of Master Baggins since, well.”

All turned silent after what Dori was going to say faded into an unvoiced obvious. They continued as they were afterwards, Dori with the medicines and Thorin running his fingers on his sister-sons faces as if to ensure their existence.

“I owe him,” he told an unconscious Fili. “And a lifetime will not be enough to repay that dept. This will fall on the shoulders of you and your brother as well.”

Fili said nothing, disobeying his king’s orders even when Thorin said, “So open your eyes and help me carry this burden.”

* * *

It was in the middle of the night when something woke Thorin with a jolt. There were only two candles left burning on the opposite side of the room, barely bringing any light but aiding enough for his night vision to play its part.

Beside him Fili and Kili slept on, quiet without snores and intakes of breath so fragile that he feared they would grow inexistent. But they breathed on, and besides the three of them the room seemed to be void of any living creatures.

He wondered if it had been just an unpleasant and already forgotten dream that had woken him, and the thought of closing his eyes to continue his slumber was starting to feel appealing. A nagging sort of feeling kept him from doing so, though, and tired as he was Thorin ran his eyes over the room several times.

There was nothing to see besides shadows and darkness, but it was not the things he saw that had the king’s attention. It was like there was a lack of air where there shouldn’t have been, something taking up space though there was nothing to see. A certain kind of existence that could go unheard and unseen if it so wished and Thorin raised from the bed with such speed that a sick rush overtook his head.

“Thief!” His voice grumbled with sleep and his tone was unintentionally harsh from surprise. And he knew even before hearing the sound of small feet running and the door opening and closing that he had made everything between them turn even more ill than it had already been.

“Bilbo,” he whispered as if it would fix all the things gone wrong. “I forgive you.”

No one answered, and the only sound he could hear was the agitated beat of his own heart drumming in his ears.

“And I pray that someday you will find it in your heart to forgive me as well.”

* * *

Bilbo Baggins lived like a shadow. He remembered it not being at all pleasant during the time he had done it in Mirkwood, and had prayed he would never have to live like that again. But as it was, his presence deemed unwanted by the king himself, there was little choice but to keep his ring on and lurk around like the thief he was.

It was taxing and felt like his soul was thinning. So long had he worn it and so tired was he that he was starting to wonder if he even existed anymore when there was no one else to share the knowledge with him.

But he had no choice. Not when he was so unwelcome and in such need to ensure the heirs of Durin survived. Thorin, he had been relieved to discover, seemed to be recovering well enough. The same couldn't be said from his nephews, however. Thus the reason Bilbo couldn't bear to leave.

He couldn't say he liked it inside the mountain. For a hole it was entirely too vast for his likes yet harboured a darkness so deep that it made him feel claustrophobic. But the deeper he wandered inside the endless passages carved into the mountain, the safer he was from being discovered. Especially now that the dwarves had set out to scout the long-neglected caverns.

That was how Bilbo had ended up wandering as far as he could in the darkness, half with the need to get away and half by accident. And into the bottom of the mountain he had stumbled, far out of the memory of the dwarves.

There he had found a vast cave that must have taken aeons and aeons from nature to create, large crystals decorating its walls and illuminating the area with a weak light that they produced in themselves. It now served as his stronghold of some sort, a place he could always return to when the world above unwanted him.

"Are your dwarves well?" A voice spoke upon his return, deep and grand, always making the crystals resonate in response to it.

"Alive," Bilbo answered, dismissive as he paid more attention to rummaging his rucksack into which he had placed stolen goods while he had been up and about.

"Pity," came the response, the voice of it so honest that Bilbo did not doubt just how much of a pity it really was considered to be.

Bilbo turned to stare over his shoulder, even smaller in size now that he was hunched over on the ground, but feeling bigger in spirit than he had perhaps ever felt before. Compared to almost anyone he would always be tiny anyway, so there was hardly any point to mull over the matter.

"Thorin is making a much quicker recovery compared to you," he said only with the purpose to stab the other where it apparently hurt the most; its pride.

"I was shot in the _heart_!" Roared the other, its tail raising and falling heavily on the cavern floor. Somewhere a crystal broke and fell, the sound of its shatter making Bilbo regret his words.

"Yes, yes, all right, fine. If that is something you wish to compete with then I declare you the clear winner," he tried to amend.

Though it didn't seem to lessen the raised anger. "End your insolence, thief, lest it ends you."

Bilbo chuckled a bit at that. Insolent and hobbit were not two things to be commonly associated with one another, though, he mused, perhaps that would change if the world was subjected to the Sackville-Bagginses.

"And he dares to _laugh_ ," seethed the other. "You should be frightened!"

"You don't seem very frightening," the hobbit said, setting the beings tail in a rampage again in its attempt to express its irritation in the only possible way its crippled body allowed it.

As crystals began to fall again, Bilbo made a promise to himself to keep his tongue in line. He might have been forever unable to get into the good graces of Smaug, but as long as they both shared this hideout, both waiting news from death in their own way, he might as well try to play nice.

If only to prevent being caught in crystal rain.

 


	2. Traitor's aid

Kili had been filled with an awful mix of absolute fright and addicting ecstasy. There might have been laughter, and it might have come from him, when the war was at its worst, orc upon orc charging at him and past him and all around him.

It had been his first war, and he had been as prepared to die as he had been to take down as many enemies with him as he could. But when the enemies kept on falling while he still stood, strong, cutting them down like rye, he had become to believe in his own invincibility.

With his brother by his side they had been gods of war, destructive and to be immortalized into stories told to yet born children. And as the enemies grew less in numbers, he had treated it as a sign of their victory.

That was when the pale orc had come.

He walked with calm through all the fighting and dying, stepping on his own wailing allies that were too wounded to move out of his way. The war seemed to be of little interest to him, his weapon striking only out of necessity. And as Azog's cruel eyes turned to him, the kind of smile on his face that made Kili realise his own naivety, it was clear what his objective was.

To end the line of Durin.

Simple. Precise.

While Kili might have been young, fighting on without the weight of years heavy on his back, he was not ignorant of his own inferiority. War had turned one cut and wound into many, the constant movement forever straining his muscles and as sweat poured down his face, his lack of drinking was as dangerous as stopping to drink would have been.

Lightheaded and more afraid than he had ever been in his life, he turned to look at his brother. Fili, who was nearing the same stage as he, only nodded. And Kili understood.

It was not meant to be their fight. But if it could help Thorin, if only they could even wound the pale orc, then was that not a valiant enough way for them to perish?

Fili had been the first to fall.

Kili couldn't remember much of what had happened just then, but he knew that his best defence had always been the knowledge that his brother was fighting beside him and that at that moment it had been taken away from him.

There must have been physical pain, though he remembered none of it. Kili too was beaten to the ground with a sickening crack, a kick landing on his abdomen even when both of them knew how unlikely it was he would get up ever again from where he lied.

He had sought out Fili's eyes, desperate for his brother's comfort. Fili lied not far from him, his hand stretched out as if he was trying his hardest to reach for him as well.

But try as they might, they were too far apart, too broken to move and in the end all Kili could do was to watch life wane from his brother's eyes.

And it was with that image mind that Kili woke up with a gasp.

Instinctively he reached out to the warmth beside him, closing the gap that had haunted him in his dreams. Without seeing or even breathing in the fading scent that came with life, he could recognise his brother's presence, and when he did open his eyes, he was greeted with the familiar sight of blond beard and hair as he clung to Fili's side.

Fili, though, did not open his eyes to greet him.

' _Let him sleep, just a little while more_ ,' thought Kili, still exhausted himself and falling asleep in no time.

Only to wake up later, expectant to find Fili awake but disappointed when he wasn't. So, ' _a little bit more_ ,' Kili thought, and kept drifting in and out of sleep until his body refused to anymore, after which he just pretended, lying still with his eyes closed. Waiting.

"I know you are awake," he heard Thorin say as he entered the room. Their uncle had been in earlier that day but had not said anything to him at that time. Maybe he just hadn't noticed until now. Or maybe he too was waiting.

Kili did nothing to allude that he was conscious.

"Kili," Thorin insisted, taking a seat at the edge of the bed and reaching over Fili to run his knuckles on Kili's cheek. "Open your eyes."

"No," Kili mumbled against his brother's shoulder. "Not yet."

Sighing, Thorin drew his hand back. The king himself had been recovering well enough, if only agonisingly slow for someone who had such a role to upkeep. But his nephews, although healing physically, worried him endlessly with their unwillingness to wake up. Seeing Kili lie on the bed like he was conscious of his surroundings had been a great relief indeed. If not for the dwarf himself, then to all those around him.

"Fili will wake in his own time," Thorin tried to promise for the sake of both Kili and himself.

"What if-" Kili's words got caught in his throat, and when he finally opened his eyes to slits, they had a misty look in them. As if the world as it were was not worth looking at with bright eyes. "What if he doesn't wake up?"

"Come now, nephew. I lose faith in many things the moment either of you gives up on the other," Thorin scolded, although his voice remained gentle. "I suggest you get out of that bed and regain your strength so that you can aid your brother when he wakes up."

After a small silence Kili's head jerked just barely, but Thorin took it as a sign of agreement and couldn't help but feel all the more relieved.

* * *

Weeks passed by in haste and Thorin's days kept growing longer as they got more filled with politics and general clean-up of their reclaimed home. Word of their victory had long ago been sent to the Blue Mountains and there was much to prepare for their returning kin. Every living quarter inside the mountain had been long neglected; dust having piled on endlessly and the smell of decaying furniture filling almost every room imaginable.

But everyone found their morals high, because Erebor was their home, and to see it back in its former glory they were willing to work till their muscles ached, even if it was only from cleaning.

Some of Dain's folk remained as well, excited to be part of rebuilding the kingdom while others left back to where they would always feel more at home. This suited Thorin just fine, for he could definitely use every extra pair of hands willing to help yet couldn't say if his kingdom could afford such a growth in population, especially during the winter season when food was scarce.

Besides, he couldn't say he liked the moments they stopped him in whatever it was he was doing and smothered him with praise. They would forever be amazed how the Company's foolhardy quest had turned into stories of impossible victories, how they had defied Smaug of all beings and finally with the miraculous survival of the royal family.

And every time they spoke of how sure they had been of their passing, Thorin thought how the only miracle had been a strong enough heart to cling to the bonds that came with friendship even though the other party had been foolish enough to poison it with his words and actions.

No, he didn't like to be reminded of Bilbo Baggins, though it was not like he could ever forget in the first place. Before Smaug had come, he remembered watching his grandfather fall into lunacy, standing there surrounded by all things shiny. His father too, whatever had become of him in the hands of orcs, had most likely lost his mind at the end of it. Proud as he was of his heritage, that was the one matter he had promised himself to break the tradition of.

But the same blood circled in his veins, undeniably. For where had his sanity been when the thought of strangling the hobbit with his bare hands had filled him so violently that he might as well have done it? What had made him forget his ever-growing debt to Bilbo Baggins, starting with their lives and ending with their home?

It was shameful for a dwarf to owe a debt, firstly because their stubbornness kept them from asking for help in the first place, and secondly, because being unable to repay one deemed them a failure in many fields.

And Thorin, even with a mountain filled with treasure, had next to nothing to offer their burglar in order to make amends.

"Bilbo?" Gloin asked much in the same manner the rest of the company had when Thorin inquired whether or not anyone had seen the hobbit. "Been so busy as of late, can't really say that I have spared much thought for our burglar at all. Don't even know if he's alive."

"He is," Thorin said voice harsh. "It is only hard to get a hold of him. If anyone is to see a glimpse of him I expect word of it to come straight to me."

Gloin took a moment to stare at him, his probable smile hidden beneath his beard.

"Aye, my lord. Though a hobbit that wants to go unnoticed is not an easy thing to find, I've learned. One that has the power of invisibility in his pocket I imagine to be even less so."

That was exactly what Thorin feared perhaps even more than an impossible due. He feared that Bilbo would simply slip away, unseen and out of his reach without a word.

"Don't you worry, your majesty. Our burglar did not abandon us even during the darkest hour. I'm certain you'll find him when he is ready to be found."

Thorin nodded silently. He hoped Gloin's words would prove true one of the days to come.

* * *

It was quite by chance that Bilbo learned of the younger prince's awakening. He had been on his way to the treasury, dodging dwarves busying about here and there when his ears had picked up a piece of a conversation. Three dwarves from the Iron Hills had been gossiping about the news of Thorin's and his nephew's recovery, and to Bilbo great relief, they had mentioned that Kili was now able to stand on his own two feet once again.

After being almost caught by the king himself, Bilbo hadn't dared to approach the room where the royal family had taken residence in. He should have been safe, for it had been in the middle of the night and he had been as silent as ever as well as invisible to the eyes, but somehow Thorin had been able to tell he was there. He wouldn't risk being caught twice.

Still.

Though he now knew of Kili's recovery, he also knew of dwarven stupidity. They were generally a stubborn bunch, foolishly dismissing their needed time to recover in order to avoid being seen as weak. He only needed to observe one King Under the Mountain to know that to be true. Thorin still walked with a slight limp, one that would have healed nicely had he spent a week more in bed like a good patient. Bilbo had also witnessed many dwarves with reopened wounds, gotten purely by not being careful of them while moving rocks and other rubble around the mountain.

And they laughed about it too! The more they neglected their wounds the nastier the scarring would be, and they treated it like something to take pride in.

' _Fools_ ,' thought Bilbo. ' _It is a miracle they prosper as a race_.'

That being the reason he was willing to take a risk and was on his way to see how Kili was faring. If the young prince was like the rest of his kind, then Bilbo would have to force him back into a sleep by slipping Kili some of the herbs he had insisted Thranduil give him. Kili's wounds had been some of the worst the battle had caused, and Bilbo wasn't going to watch the dwarf get killed by his own _stupidity_ after all the trouble the elves had gone through to heal him.

Knowing Thorin spent his days in various parts of the mountain other than the room where he slept in, Bilbo dared to approach the room. The door of it was slightly ajar, not enough for him to slip inside without making the gap only the tiniest bit wider, but with enough luck he would avoid any creaking sounds from escaping it even if he moved it however much was necessary.

Peering from the gap Bilbo could see Fili still lying on the bed, his eyes still closed. Kili sat on a stool beside the bed, his back turned to the door. It was good then, to see that Kili's unwillingness to leave his brother's side was keeping him from pushing himself physically. There was really no need for him to go inside, but the urge to offer Kili some company overcame him no matter how unnoticed it would go.

As silently as he could, Bilbo crept inside. Though luck seemed to abandon him the moment the door let out the tiniest creak when he pushed past it, making Kili turn around slowly to stare in the direction of the noise. His heart thumping away in his ears, Bilbo drew into one of the corners of the room as he silently watched Kili rise from his seat and approach the door.

Without seemingly sparing much thought about what had caused the door to move, Kili closed it shut, effectively capturing Bilbo inside. The hobbit didn't worry much, though. Someone else was bound to enter the room sooner or later, and once the door was opened again, he could exit unnoticed.

His plans of eventual escape weren't long lived, however, when Kili failed to return to his seat, instead stopping to stand in the middle of the room. The young dwarf looked at the air around him, expression unreadable, before he almost stopped Bilbo's heart by turning his gaze to the corner where he stood.

With only a couple of long strides, Kili was almost upon him, and while Bilbo did his best to move out of the way, he soon found two arms wrapped around his torso and his back against Kili's chest as the prince captured a bundle of wiggling air.

"You must be Mister Baggins," Kili said smirking, lifting his captive so that Bilbo could not feel the ground beneath his feet anymore.

"Can you please put me down, Kili?" Bilbo asked, whispering as if that would prevent him from getting into any more trouble than he was already in.

"I think not," answered the dwarf, carrying him over to the stool and sitting down on it with Bilbo awkwardly on his lap. "Word is that you are awfully hard to get a hold of, Master Hobbit. I'd risk losing you again were I to let go now."

"How you found me in the first place is a mystery to me," Bilbo muttered while yielding to his captor's hold. Struggling would do neither of them any good, anyway. Not with Bilbo being already found out and Kili being wounded.

"We spent so much time travelling together that we have grown to recognise your presence," Kili said shrugging it off as if it made sense.

"I see," Bilbo said even though he didn't. "Anyway, I am glad to see you recovering well enough. How is Fili?"

"How does he look to you?" Kili said as an answer, any amount of cheerfulness disappearing from his voice.

"I want to say that he looks well, but he's slept for so long that I cannot help but worry."

"Then that makes two of us."

Kili's arms tightened around him and the dwarf rested his forehead against the nape of Bilbo's neck. Bilbo supposed it was Kili's way of finding comfort wherever he could, and Bilbo himself found some in it as well. It had been such a long time since he had had any physical contact with anyone at all.

Closing his eyes Bilbo let out a long sigh, relishing the warmth which the hug spread in him. This was where a hobbit's values lied, not in riches and scars of war, but in comfort and joys of being able to share life with those important to oneself.

"What do you intend to do with me?" Bilbo asked after having taken enough advantage of his situation.

"What do you mean?" Kili mumbled sounding so very tired.

"You captured me." Though still invisible, Bilbo threw a look over his shoulder as he stated the obvious. "Do you mean to keep me a prisoner?"

It made a small smile grow on Kili's face, a sparkle of his old mirth returning for just a moment. "I wonder, Master Baggins. What ever shall I do with you? Got any requests?"

"If you are willing to hear my counsel, then I must plead you to keep me a secret," Bilbo said. His intention was to jest but the honesty in his voice turned his suggestion into a serious request.

"Why?" Questioned Kili, the lack of wonderment in his voice making Bilbo think that the prince had already made his own guesses as to why. After all, he too had been at the gates when Bilbo's betrayal had come to their knowledge. Kili had seen the way his uncle had reacted and had heard the words he had said to the hobbit.

"To avoid trouble," Bilbo found himself explaining despite that. "I only wish to see you all get well, nothing more. After your brother is out of that bed I will be on my way home, I promise."

"What a noble heart you possess," Kili smiled with a little tease.

"It is just a hobbit's heart, one that likes to sit beside sickbeds and hold another's hand when the times are tough. Especially if the other is someone it holds close."

"And dare I ask what you think of our dwarven hearts?" Kili asked, well aware that their behaviour often left a bad impression on folk not bothering to take a deeper look. "Or do you suspect us to have none at all?"

The hobbit hummed a bit, accepting the blackish sense of humour and acknowledging that Kili must have been after some sort of consolation. "Even the foul have hearts," he said with the kind of optimism that had always been in conflict with the suspicious nature of hobbits. More than often this had proved to be wrong, but it didn't waver their belief in it. "And yours, I have learned, are loyal to a fault."

"Where is there fault in it?"

"You almost died." Running his invisible hand on Kili's scarred arm, Bilbo wondered how all the damage would affect the rest of the prince's life. The way his fingers were still under heavy bandaging couldn't be but ill news for his skills in archery.

"I must confess to you," Kili said while sighing in content of having Bilbo worry over him. "There is this unfair thought that sometimes visits me during the darkest hour. That is was both you and uncle Thorin that put Fili on that bed."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that even though I shouldn't think so, it was because of uncle that Fili almost died, while I have every reason to believe that it is because of you that he lived."

"Why are you saying this?" Bilbo was starting to feel a tad uncomfortable by the confession. To a dwarf kin was everything, and he did not want to be the cause of any tension between such strong bonds.

"To tell you that my loyalty is yours, however faulty it is."

At that Bilbo had to wriggle on Kili's lap enough to be able to see his face though the other couldn't see his. The honesty in those dark eyes held the same promise as his words, the exact kind that Bilbo wished to stay well away from. This was a family drama waiting to happen, and he would be the cause of it.

Then again, Thorin could not dislike him any more than he already did, and even if he could, Bilbo couldn't bring himself to feel any sorrier for their circumstances than he already did.

Daring to feel a bit hopeful as well as guilty of exploiting the benefits, Bilbo asked, "So I can walk out of this room without you alarming anyone of it?"

"Yes," Kili agreed, smiling at air.

"Well," said Bilbo with a breath of relief. "I am as pleased to hear that as I am surprised of how well-spoken you can be."

His words made a laugh bubble from the dwarf's belly, true and a bit surprising, as if Kili had promised himself not let it happen until certain conditions were met. "Don't insult me, burglar. Us royals are taught to speak properly whether we like it or not."

"I am guessing you did not like it much," Bilbo teased, much preferring Kili's rollicking way of talking.

"Well guessed," grinned the other.

"Well then. Please release your hold on me, if you would. I think I should leave before someone walks into this room."

"Only if you promise to come and sit at Fili's sickbed and hold my hand," said Kili while already letting the hobbit go.

"I promise," Bilbo smiled, getting one in return before he made his exit.

* * *

"You seem to be in high spirits today, thief," Smaug said glumly upon his arrival. Bilbo wondered how the dragon could tell, considering it had never even seen the hobbit. But then, Smaug had said he could feel his air, and he did indeed feel an air of positivity surrounding him.

"Kili is nearing a full recovery," he explained, knowing the dragon wouldn't take his news joyfully but feeling the need to share and talk about it with someone, anyone. Happy news were meant to be shared as much as bad ones.

"You expect me to distinguish them from one another by just the mention of their names?" Came a snort, one that seemed to have only the purpose to exaggerate how beneath it the beast thought the dwarves to be.

Bilbo ignored the dragon's jibes altogether, keeping to his good mood and making it sound like they were having two different discussions. The reason they were conversing in the first place was just to keep each other company, nothing else. So quite cheerfully Bilbo could say, "Kili is Thorin's younger nephew."

Smaug huffed out a breath, apparently disappointed for not having its malice plague its companion.

"I was so glad to see him well," Bilbo continued, a smile spreading on his face as he remembered their moment of shared comfort. "Now if only his brother would follow suit I could be on my way home."

"Home?" Asked Smaug sounding so surprised that it left no room for ill tones.

"Home," Bilbo confirmed, thinking of Bag End with a dull homesickness.

"Where is this home of yours?"

"Far, far away," sighed the hobbit, feeling weary even thinking about the time it'd take him to travel back.

"And you will leave as soon as the last of the dwarves makes his recovery?" Smaug asked, unable to see Bilbo's nod of an answer but knowing it had been given. "You will just go and leave me here?"

Surprised as he was by the question, the words were already out of Bilbo's mouth before he had the chance to fully think them through. "What else is there to do?"

"Did you not promise your supposed friends to rid their mountain of me?" The questions continued and Bilbo could not say he felt comfortable hearing them.

"I promised them no such thing," he said. "I was hired to a burglar. To steal treasure."

"So you feel at ease with yourself, then," the dragon pressed on, "leaving their enemy alive underneath their home?"

Bilbo had been more at ease while not thinking about it. He looked at Smaug, lying on the cavern floor decorated with its own dried blood. A black arrow jutted out of its chest where Bilbo had spotted a weakness in its armour. It must have just barely missed its heart, so dangerously close to the beating organ that Smaug must have literally been just inches away from death.

Now it could do nothing but lie in hiding, afraid to move lest the arrow sank in deeper and unable to do anything to remove it itself.

"There's nothing I can do," Bilbo said quickly, turning to face away.

"There is _everything_ you can do," Smaug countered. "I am not lying here waiting for my body give in to eternal sleep. I am an immortal, see, so instead I wait for my sanity to leave me and make taking my own life an appealing thought."

"What are you saying?" Bilbo asked, his voice small and throat hurting as he swallowed thickly.

"You are not a cruel creature," said the dragon as if it pained it to say such a supposed compliment. "And loathe as I do to admit it, I would not mind if my existence was put to an end by the hands of someone as cunning as yourself."

"I can't do that!" Bilbo protested, horrified by the very idea. "I can't- You cannot ask that of me."

"You would rather have me as a nagging thought at the edges of your mind?" Dragging its tail lazily back and forth on the floor, Smaug looked towards the general direction Bilbo was hiding in. "You could not bear the uncertainty of whether or not of your former companions survived. Do you think you will have peace knowing you left me here to suffer for an eternity?"

"You are evil." It was the truth, but not an argument. Any reason he could use against Smaug's were lost in the weakness of Bilbo's voice.

"But you are not."

And Bilbo knew he had lost. He took off his ring, breathing with relief as his surroundings returned into the shapes and shades they was supposed to be, as opposed to the moving edges and shadows of a world into which no one else could see.

Still keeping his distance, he stepped into the line of sight of Smaug's. Giving a small bow more to mock the drake than anything, he said, "Bilbo Baggins, at your service."

Smaug took its time to study his figure now that it was finally able to see him, and snorted after a while.

"Aren't you an odd little creature?"

Ignoring the comment, Bilbo shifted his weight between his two legs nervously. "What would you have me do?"

"Come claim your victory," said Smaug with enviable calm. "Aid this arrow to pierce my heart."

"I've kept my distance for a reason. Do not think I'll so blindly trust you to not kill me the moment I approach."

Smaug laughed at that, the motion of it waving on its chest and moving the arrow's head stuck on its flesh. It resulted in some sort of mixture of a reflexive mirth that couldn't be stopped by will and excruciating yowls of pain until the dragon managed to calm down again, breathing heavily like a dying animal. It was a dreadful thing to watch.

"Harming you would work against my own interests," it finally said.

"And how am I to know that your interest is not to have your final revenge against me after which you would feel content enough to take your own life?" Bilbo asked doubtfully.

"Do not mock me!" Roared Smaug "Who has ever heard of a dragon ending its own days? That is a stupidity reserved for humans!"

"I meant no offence," Bilbo tried to amend timidly, which was ridiculous, really. He was only trying to assure his own safety, after all.

"I have lost many things, Bilbo Baggins," the dragon said after having calmed down from his fit of rage. "My hoard, my fire, my pride. There is nothing left to blind me from keeping this one promise I make to you: No harm will come to you."

It was not much, just words and blind leap of trust, all working against his better judgement. But Bilbo found himself nearing Smaug despite doubting in his heart that he'd see the daylight and green fields of the Shire ever again.

Keeping to its promise, Smaug did not move an inch when Bilbo came to stand next to it, even though being blind to the hobbit's doings. It let its head rest against the ground, eyes closed and breathing steadily. Hesitating, Bilbo considered the arrow which was way out of his reach lest he climbed up the dragon's front leg.

"You don't mind, do you?" He asked uncertainly while placing both of his palms against the dragon's scales, surprised by the warmth of them.

"Do what you must," Smaug answered, its voice low and uncaring.

So Bilbo climbed until he could reach the arrow. Upon closer look, it vibrated a bit as Smaug's heart kept beating near it. It was not an inviting sight, but having ended up this deep into a promise he had not even made, there was nothing else to it than to take a firm hold of the arrow shaft. Bilbo took a deep, deep breath, closing his eyes and opening them again.

' _Great courage is not defined by knowing when to take a life_ ," Gandalf's voice suddenly echoed in his head. ' _But when to spare one_.'

Bilbo's brow creased and his hands trembled. And then he yanked as hard as he could, the arrow head fighting against muscle tissue, tearing it apart on its way out. Blood followed it as did Smaug's screams which were so loud that they must have carried all the way to Mirkwood.

The dragon's body flailed uncontrollably, sending Bilbo flying through the air. And just before hitting the cavern wall and losing consciousness, Bilbo had the time to think what a fool he had been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops! Been forgetting my disclaimers. Hobbit ain't mine. :(
> 
> Anyway, I noticed this story is progressing in a confusing order, so let it be known that questions like where is Gandalf and how Smaug got under the mountain will be answered in later chapters. Yep-yep.


	3. Sticks and Stones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am beyond sorry for taking forever with this chapter! It just kept growing so long and difficult and other excuses I can't come up with right now.   
> Also, I think I should point out that I never intended for Smaug to be so much like Sherlock, but it seems to be this headcanon of mine which I can't shake off no matter what. So Smauglock it is.  
> Hope you enjoy reading!

Bilbo moaned in misery. He much preferred to be unconscious if being awake meant having to deal with a head-splitting ache. He recalled his skull connecting with a wall with such force that it might have been considered a lucky thing that he had woken at all. Something Bilbo couldn’t bring himself to appreciate at the moment.

Managing to open his eyes, Bilbo found himself still in the crystal adorned cave. The ground he was lying on was cold and uncomfortable, small pebbles pressing against his back in a way that got onto his nerves. It made him groan and moan and yearn for his own comfortable bed back at Bag End.

“You quite done lying there?” Someone suddenly asked from the vicinity of his pounding head, making Bilbo’s mind jolt into alert even when his body was less able to do the same. It took an effort, but he managed to tilt his head enough to peer in the direction he assumed the voice had come from.

A man stood there, draped in a felt that Bilbo vaguely remembered snatching from somewhere within Erebor with the prayer that no one would miss it in its absence. The man was tall –as all humans were, but this one seemed to be particularly so- pale in skin and dark in everything else. He kept looking at Bilbo in an annoyed kind of familiarity even though the hobbit couldn’t say he had ever seen the man before.

And what was a _man_ doing inside the mountain in the first place? The absurdity of it all was starting to make him wonder if his headache had been acquired from a night of heavy drinking and the man as a poor decision made during the wee hours of the night.

“You wearing any pants?” Bilbo asked just to make sure.

“No,” answered the other without blinking.

A hysteric kind of laugh escaped the hobbit, one that turned into a whine when it managed to double his hurting.

“What is going on?” Bilbo moaned.

“You hit your head,” the man said, both uncaring and annoyed at having to state the obvious. “It is not fatal enough an injury to kill you, though I cannot be sure if other unsavoury ailments will occur.”

“That is… good to hear. Sorry, _who_ are you?”

The man narrowed his eyes as if he attempted to look down at Bilbo in every way possible. “Perhaps you suffered a drop in intelligence?”

Bilbo wanted to feel insulted, he really did. But instead he found his energies better used for trying to sit up and see where he could go from there. Perhaps starting by exiting the mountain would be a good idea? All the trouble he had gotten into was starting to wear on him, not to speak of the depressing darkness that continued on forever. With Kili awake, the dwarf would be sure to see his brother get better as well.

No reason for him to stay if fate seemed to be so against it, then.

“Again, I am _sorry_ , but I have no idea who you are,” said Bilbo irritably while working the palms of his hands against his eyes in an attempt to straighten his thoughts. “There was no one down here besides the dragon and I, how did you even find-“

Suddenly his eyes grew impossibly wide; a trait of hobbits’ that got them out of trouble a lot of times. Bilbo scrambled to stand, looking around frantically.

“Where is the dragon?” He asked dumbfounded.

“Have I made such a fleeting impression that you will not recognise me even if I stand right before your eyes?” The man questioned, amusement starting to peek from somewhere within the irritation.

Bilbo’s throbbing mind was already putting two and two together without his consent after noting the absence of an injured dragon and knowing the impossible odds that a man would wander down to the roots of the mountain. The more the man spoke the more he heard the similarities in their manner of speaking and the feeling of arrogance radiating in waves over him just felt so _familiar_. The conclusion came and hit him hard, knocking down any rational thought behind which he tried to hide it.

Shaking his head, Bilbo breathed, “It cannot be. You _can’t_ be Smaug.”

“Did you rule out the impossible?” Asked the man while looking almost pleased at Bilbo’s wild conclusion.

Head still shaking, Bilbo was starting to feel a tad nauseous. “A dragon turning into a human is impossible.”

“Improbable, maybe,” relented the man. “But nonetheless possible.”

_Improbable_ , Bilbo thought, had been a man who could turn into a bear. But then, even as a man, Beorn had very much resembled a bear to begin with. To him the impossibility was the difference in body mass between Smaug and this man.

Other than that, though, there really was starting to be a lack of reasons for him to think it untrue. All the studies of dragons he had consumed had failed to mention a word of shape shifting, but then, all of the information in them had been observed from afar for obvious reasons and he doubted the situation he had currently managed to land in was a repeat of history in the first place.

“So you are Smaug, then,” Bilbo accepted, thinking that it could be argued that no hobbit ever came this far from the Shire and thus Bilbo couldn’t claim to be one. So maybe Dragons could shift their shape as well as he could abandon all reason and run off to a mad adventure. “Is there a reason you chose to look like a human?”

“Of course there was a reason for this,” the dragon said, scrunching his nose in disgust as he did so. “Why would I choose to dishonour myself like this if it could be avoided?”

“Dishonour?” Bilbo asked, not understanding the other’s complete dislike towards his alternate form.

“Having lived all your life as you now are, you would not be happy if you turned into an orc, I imagine,” Smaug said, looking Bilbo up and down as if he still couldn’t quite figure out what a hobbit was supposed to be.

“But surely there is a difference between being turned into a human and an orc,” argued Bilbo.

To which Smaug only huffed, “Our enemies might differ in looks, Bilbo Baggins, but their intentions towards us are the same.”

Which was of course true. Though Bilbo doubted the dragon would have so much enemies could he mind his own temper and lust for gold. He didn’t mention any of it to the dragon, though.

“Men are by far the bravest race, do you not think?” Looking down at his new body, Smaug let out a mocking laugh. “And by brave I mean _stupid_. They come in ones, did you know, with such reasons as half a perishing kingdom or to save a damsel I have long since eaten. And while I much like the shine of their armour, it often gets stuck in my teeth.”

The tone in which the dragon was talking with was so casual that Bilbo might have completely missed how he was talking about slaughter and eating men. An involuntary shudder ran through his body as he wondered whether or not this all could end up with Bilbo himself on a dinner plate. Then again, he had faced this situation a couple of times before, all from which he had managed to talk himself out of.

Be it trolls in the forest or odd creatures at the bottom of mountains, this was just a repeat of his earlier lived experiences, and if those had taught Bilbo anything, it was that distractions and changes of subject worked like a charm.

“Why is it then that you chose to take the form of a man if you dislike it so much?” Bilbo asked, not having to feign curiosity since he really kind of wanted to know.

“This is the only other form I was given,” Smaug muttered while inspecting the pale skin of his new arm.

“Given? By whom?”

“The one who made me,” seemed to be the only thing Smaug was willing to say about the matter.

Exciting as all the new information was for his academic soul, Bilbo decided not to question the dragon any further on its heritage. The time and place were all wrong for that, if there would be a right time for it at all. Besides, more than he was interested in taking notes and writing books, Bilbo was keen on keeping himself as much in the good graces of creatures that were terrifyingly dangerous as was possible.

Which brought other problems for him to talk himself out of. For now that his head was clearing and curiosity held at bay, there came the inevitable question of what was going to happen next. Bilbo knew he needed to get out of the mountain and start his way back home now that he had had quite enough of sneaking around in the shadows, and while that alone would be a bit problematic, there was quite a bit bigger of a problem staring at him not from many feet away.

He just _had_ to save the dragon, didn’t he?

“Your reason for using your human form, then?” He barely dared to ask, continuing on from their previous conversation.

“It is the only way for me to leave this mountain with you,” came the answer, almost word to word what Bilbo was dreading to hear.

“I suppose you need stealth to leave, but how you got down here in the first place is what I’d like to know.”

“I fell into the lake when I was shot,” shrugged the other. By following the dragon’s gaze Bilbo noticed the edges of what he assumed to be a pool of water. It was in an area he had never dared to go to because that would have meant having to walk past Smaug. “I was ready to die at the bottom of it, for I would much rather be out of their reach than be hacked to pieces in their attempt to rid me of my waistcoat. But then I saw an underwater cave and decided to see where it led. It took all of my strength and put out my fire, but I found myself here, at the bottom of the mountain.”

“Sorry, put out your fire?”

“I was a _Fire_ Drake from the North. Surely you know what water tends to do to fire?” Smaug said dryly, look darkening as he continued, “And now I’m not even a _dragon_ anymore.”

It was hardly something Bilbo could sympathize with, or even grasp the severity of the other’s losses. So he just stood awkwardly silent, stretching his fingers in and out of fists with a troubled look on his face until Smaug out of the blue asked, “Shall we go then?”

 

* * *

 

Smaug didn’t seem to understand his situation as he walked through the deep, dark tunnels of Erebor. His legs were long and he walked in a brisk pace, leaving Bilbo struggling to keep up with his injuries and other disadvantages given in birth.

They were a sight of insanity, he was sure. A naked man prancing through a dwarven kingdom like he owned the place! Followed by an invisible hobbit, no less.

“Thirteen dwarves were once trapped in elven dungeons, did you know this?” Bilbo whispered as loudly as he dared after the dragon, a bit out of breath from the exercise. “And do you know how they escaped? Do you? I _helped_ them, that’s how!”

“Fascinating.” Smaug allowed, tone dry enough to emphasize his lack of interest in the matter.  

“Isn’t it though? Because they couldn’t have just _strutted_ out of there, no. See, that’s how folk get _caught_.”

“Have you got an actual reason why you are telling me this?” Stopping absurdly, Smaug kept his gaze forward even when Bilbo couldn’t stop in time and ran into his back. His instinct to apologize furiously took the bite out of Bilbo’s earlier complaining, but he did his best to continue as he was now that Smaug had finally stopped to actually listen to him.

Or if not him, then the very faint sound of footfalls that could be heard echoing along the hallway. Which was bad news. Very bad news indeed. Though not entirely unexpected.

“We need to hide,” Bilbo said while doing his best not to panic, taking a hold of the dragon’s elbow and shaking it like it could help the other understand the point of his words better.

“And where do you suggest we hide?” The dragon asked, standing still unblinking while he stared on into the direction of the approaching sounds.

It was a long, straight corridor they had been walking in without any turns or twists anywhere. Being dwarven made, the walls of it were smooth and polished and kept in such symmetry that there were no crooks or crannies where they could hide in. The only two options they had were to either go back from where they came or to be caught.

Bilbo was opting for the first choice, no matter if he knew that they would most likely end up falling into a loop where they tried and tried to exit the mountain while more and more dwarves became to populate its hallways, gradually narrowing their chances of ever succeeding.

Smaug on the other hand seemed to be completely blind to their lack of options, gaze hardening with each step the dwarves took in their direction and nostrils flaring as if his body was trying to breathe out fire.

“They are in my mountain,” it hissed, a manic look growing in its eyes as fury had him take a step in the opposite direction to which Bilbo was desperately trying to pull him into. “The _filth_ that dare to call my treasure _theirs_.”

No matter how Bilbo struggled, holding onto the dragon’s arm and digging his heels to the stone floor to stop him, it was all in vain. He was hardly a match to the strength that kept dragging him along like he didn’t exist.

“Calm yourself! We’ll get caught,” he pleaded.

But Smaug wouldn’t listen. He only raised his voice and quickened his pace, all sense of reason gone when he yelled, “I will _kill_ them! Every last one of them!”

By now they had been heard. The footsteps came to a brief halt, after which they began to run. There was shouting and the clanking of armoury and weapons. Smaug seemed all too ready to face the guards; as if his blind anger alone could somehow compensate the fact that he had been recently severely injured, was in an unfamiliar body and had nothing but a felt draped over that body, hardly protecting him even from the cold touch of air.

Bilbo had no idea whether or not Smaug could carry out his threats. But he did know that if the dragon _tried_ to, then the dwarves would respond in kind and _someone_ would end up dead. To stop it from happening the hobbit’s panicked body –quite by its own accord- ran up to Smaug’s side and rammed itself against the dragon’s. Unprepared and in mid step, Smaug’s balance gave out and he slammed against the unforgiving stone wall.

“ _Calm_!” Bilbo shouted at him even though his own heart was in his ears and breath coming out in quick hales. Smaug turned to face him, eyes and pupils wide.

“Calm,” Bilbo commanded again, putting his hand flat on the dragon’s pale chest where his heart lied, pressing down hard as if he could calm it down by reducing the space in which it had room to beat in. “You’re the underdog now. You can’t take them on.”

“They took my treasure,” Smaug chocked like his human body was trying to grieve without the mind understanding the concept of it. “They took _everything_. I hate them. I _resent_ them!”

“Not everything,” Bilbo tried to assure him, desperately thinking of a way out of their situation before the guards reached them. “You’re still alive, aren’t you?”

“And what is the point of living like this? Dishonoured? Disfigured?” Smaug laughed like a man who had given up.

“None of that now,” Bilbo tried to scold even though his voice was cracking. “Here is what we are going to do: When the guards come, you are going to let them take you. Don’t struggle, don’t fight them, and for the love of all, don’t _provoke_ them.”

The sound of the guards running came already from uncomfortably close, and Bilbo had to take a step back and slip his ring on in order to avoid being caught. Smaug said nothing, just kept on staring at the place where Bilbo was and suddenly wasn’t.

“I _will_ come and get you,” Bilbo continued. “I promise I’ll come for you and we’ll leave this mountain together. And you will see that there’s much more to this world than a mountain full of treasure.”

Still Smaug said nothing, but Bilbo had no other choice but to take it as an affirmative that he had been understood.

Then, just quiet enough that the guards couldn’t hear it from their own shouting, Smaug said, “Perhaps I was wrong about you, Bilbo Baggins.”

“You are cruel after all.”

 

* * *

 

Bilbo found himself in a familiar situation where he was running through the dark paths of Erebor as quickly and quietly as he could. The increased number in population did not ease his attempts, nor did his lack of stamina which had him wheezing and panting even after short distances. At one point he even nearly suffocated himself while trying to hold his run out breath when four guards walked past him.

Dangerous business, that.

Still, he had to hurry, because the dwarves were bound to jail Smaug for being beyond suspicious, and dwarven cells probably meant being surrounded by twenty tons of rock in every direction. There would be no sneaking out of _that_ monstrosity, so he had to somehow get to the dragon before the worst happened.

The thought of apologizing, knocking out the guards and then apologizing again came to his mind, but while he probably could do it to a couple of them while invisible, more would come and become aware of his existence. Besides, that could give Smaug some ideas he wasn’t willing to see the consequences of.

So hated it as he did, Bilbo had to go to the one ally he had in the mountain. It felt like taking advantage of the loyalty Kili had pledged him, forcing him to take part in a mess which Bilbo would rather keep him well away from.

But he was running out of both time and choices, and so he took in an involuntary breath of relief when he found Kili standing outside the old medical room where he slept with his brother. He wanted to shout all the way from where he was approaching to get Kili’s attention, but knew he couldn’t, so instead he kept approaching silently as always.

Kili seemed to be out of it. He was staring at the door of the room without really seeing it, shoulders in a slight slump instead of his usual straight and confident posture. It was an odd sight altogether, Bilbo realised, seeing the prince just standing there on the hallway instead of being in the room from where he had had difficulties leaving for so long.

“Kili?” He asked hesitantly once he had reached the dwarf, his sudden appearance out of nowhere startling the other. Kili’s body jerked and his head whipped to the side, eyes frantically searching for the source of his name being said.

“It’s Bilbo,” he whispered to state the obvious which had somehow escaped the dwarf. Hearing the name of the hobbit seemed to snap Kili out of whatever daze he had been in, and a small smile grew on his face like it was an automatic reaction.

That was when Bilbo noticed the state of Kili’s face. The stretch of his lips tore a cut open, and it started to bleed, a narrow, red line starting to make its way down Kili’s chin. He had a black eye and a variety of other bruises on his face. His hair was more of a mess than usual.

“Look,” Bilbo said hastily. “You _know_ I’m going to probe you for answers as to why you look like you’ve just wrestled a lion, but there is a really urgent matter I need your help with!”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t probe me at all,” Kili said quietly while wiping his chin on his sleeve.

Needing to get a move on, Bilbo took Kili’s hand and started to drag him along the corridors towards the direction he imagined they were taking Smaug into. Considering the lack of customs in the only recently reclaimed kingdom as well as the on-going negotiations with the humans, Smaug would probably be taken straight to the King Under the Mountain to be heard and judged. It was his best guess anyway.

“There’s a man I need to get out of this mountain,” Bilbo started to let Kili in on the situation. “He was already taken by the guards. Will they take him to see Thorin? Can you help me if that’s the case?”

“A man?” Kili frowned. “Why would a man wander around our mountain?”

“Never mind why,” Bilbo snapped, frustrated by how unable he was to tell the whole truth to anyone and impatient to hear the answer to his earlier questions. “The thing is that I got him into this trouble and now I have to get him out. He means no harm to your folk. Will you help me?”

It took many a step and unsure moments before Bilbo could hear Kili’s quiet, “Yes.”

 

* * *

 

“What is this?” Thorin asked with an icy tone, already weary from long negotiations and in a foul mood from hunger.  He had been ready to retire for the day when a matter of urgency had been brought before him.

A matter that looked incredibly ridiculous with his lack of clothing and a look in his eyes that spoke of insufferable superiority despite his situation.

The guards shifted a bit uneasily before one of them spoke. “We found him from the lower level corridors that haven’t been explored yet.”

_That_ perked the king’s curiosity and suspicion even more than the guards bringing a naked human draped in a felt before him had done to begin with. The man didn’t seem to have any interest in looking at any of his captors, instead opting to let his eyes run along the walls of the temporary meeting room he had been brought into.

“Who are you, then?” Thorin started by asking, narrowing his eyes when he got no answer or even the man’s attention. “Speak!”

“He won’t say anything,” the guard on the man’s right said.

“We heard him shouting before we caught him but he hasn’t uttered a sound since then,” the one on the left piped in.

“We think he might be a bit, you know,” continued the other, exchanging looks with his fellow guard before continuing to address their king. “ _Deranged_.”

The man snorted, a smirk on his lips and gaze still anywhere but at any of the dwarves.

“He seems to find your thoughts amusing.” Thorin muttered from under his breath, gaining second-hand satisfaction from the way the offence made the guards tighten their grip on the man to purposely cause discomfort.

“Are you here to thief from us?” Approaching the stranger with his hands held behind his back, Thorin spoke with a clear, carrying voice that demanded respect. The question seemed to at least cause a reaction, though it was far from the one he had been expecting. The man didn’t look like a hare caught in an inescapable trap. Instead he looked _angry_ as he turned to look at Thorin, his brows drawn together like he had been wronged.

Still, the man continued to say nothing, so Thorin spoke for him. “Or are you here to spy on us?”

“The assumptions you are making are quite wild,” the man finally said, his voice a deep baritone and gaze like stone while he stared down at Thorin.

“And what else would a solitary man be doing sneaking around our well-guarded mountain during a time of negotiations?” Thorin threw back.

“But I am hardly just a man, am I?” The stranger smiled a smile that bordered on cruel even though it seemed like he was only trying to jest. “I am a _naked_ one, and I have to agree with the brutes by my side here and consider the sight of me a bit deranged if anything.”

Again the guards found him offensive enough to allow their fingers paint bruises on the man’s arms, tugging on them like one would do to a beast they wanted to know had misbehaved. It didn’t seem to bother the stranger at all. He kept staring on like there was no one in the room besides him and Thorin.

Thorin took a while to consider the other. Upon seeing the man his best guess would also have been that something was off balance inside his head. But he had heard him speak now, and the same insanity which he bore on the outside was not in his words. Rather, the man seemed to be fully aware both of his surroundings and situation.

And he didn’t seem at all phased that he was bound in place by iron grips of annoyed dwarven guards. It was like he knew he had the upper hand. Like he was waiting for something to happen.

“Why is it then that you don’t have any clothes on?” Thorin kept questioning just to keep the other answering.

With an easy shrug the man said, “You didn’t have any in my size available.”

“We should just cut his head off!” The guard on his right growled.

”You found _that_ offensive?” Quirking an eyebrow the man turned to look at the walls once more, as if only the king was worth his stare. “I was not supposed to provoke you.”

“What do you mean?” Thorin demanded. “Did someone tell you that?”

Ignoring anything the dwarves did or said to him again, the man turned his head to look straight ahead of him, gazing in Thorin’s direction like he could be staring into his eyes were he as tall as he was. _That_ if anything was insulting, but while Thorin was really starting to feel like death would be a suitable punishment for his insolence, they really couldn’t afford to kill a man of Laketown while the negotiations were still on.

They could maybe jail him and use him against the humans, but that would probably just put more strain on their already feeble alliance. And they _did_ need one another, the dwarves and the humans. The men needed wealth to rebuild what Smaug had burned to ashes, and Erebor needed to find an ally in a wealthy, growing human city that would assist them in both defence and trade.

Worst of all, they still had the Arkenstone.

Thinking about the treasure of treasures in the hands of men made Thorin lose whatever patience he had left, a blinding anger taking its place. He strode up to the man, drawing out Orcrist and pointing it at the man’s throat.

“Who told you not to provoke us?” He asked so loudly it was bordering on yelling. “Do not think I will hesitate to cut your throat if you choose to ignore another of my questions, _human_.”

“ _I_ told him!” A familiar voice suddenly boomed as the doors of the room were pushed open. There stood Kili, breathing like he had just run a distance, looking beaten down in every possible way. He took a few calming breaths at the doorway, ruffled his hair a bit in an attempt to make it more tame and stepped fully inside the room before he closed the doors behind him.

Everyone in the room stood still, watching at the young prince. Even the man chose to stare at Kili instead of the wall.

“I brought him here,” Kili said without a waver in his voice, making eye contact with everyone in the room as if daring them to question his truth. Finally his gaze stopped on Thorin where it stayed.

“Kili,” Thorin said lowly, expression indecisive between anger and concern as he took in the stage of his nephew’s face. “Did Fili-“

“In _fact_ ,” Kili interrupted him loudly, his right hand jerking the slightest as if something unexpected had just touched it. “The practical joke I was playing on Mister _Holm_ here just got a bit out of hand.”

“You find this _funny_?” Thorin said so coldly it surprised even himself. He didn’t know which was worse; the feeling that he wasn’t entirely in control of his temper or Kili’s lack of reaction to it. Like he was expecting it. Like he was _used_ to it.

Sighing heavily, Thorin brought his fingers to his temples and tried to calm down. “Look, I know that things with your brother are-“ he tried to amend, but Kili wasn’t willing to hear any of it, grinding his teeth in a way that looked painful before interrupting his king again.

“I shall escort him out and sort out this mess after which you may choose a suitable punishment to bestow upon me for my foolish actions,” Kili spoke eloquently, purposely appearing very disrespecting even though his words were well tailored. He finished his speech with a little bow that made Thorin want to smack the back of his head.

“Very well, then,” the king said instead through gritted teeth. “I trust you to sort this out and afterwards come to me with a full explanation.”

Kili nodded, the absence of a mischievous smile on his face worrying his uncle. But perhaps this was not the time and place to talk about what was running through his nephew’s mind. Not when there were so many near strangers present.

Nodding at the guards, Thorin gave a silent command for them to release the man. The human was still staring at Kili when he was freed, saying nothing to him even when Kili jerked his head in the direction of the doors, turned around and started to walk away.

Then both of them were gone and Thorin, during that time, was glad to see the back of them.

 

* * *

 

“Why did you call me Mister Holm?” Smaug asked Kili as he was being escorted out of the mountain.

Kili gave him an odd look from over his shoulder. “To make it seem like I actually knew who you were?”

“But Holm is not my name,” frowned the dragon.

“It’s not like our mutual friend ever mentioned your actual name to me,” Kili answered.

“I think Holm is a fine name,” a voice coming from thin air joined their conversation before Kili could ask Smaug for his real name. “We have holm oaks in the Shire. They’re strong trees and ever green. Very nice indeed.”

“An oak?” Smaug seemed displeased by it, if the way he scrunched his nose in disgust was anything to go by. “You named me after a _tree_?” He asked Kili accusingly.

“Trees burn to ash. That is all they ever do. I do not appreciate this.”

Shrugging, Kili said, “I made my first bow using holm. Turned out to be a poor decision on my part.”

The fact that Kili had more or less just said how much trouble helping Smaug had gotten him into went completely beyond the dragon’s comprehension, and he kept on sulking over the name instead of appreciating the trouble a stranger had gone through to help him.

“You could have called me Platinum or Mithril,” he said moodily. “Even something as hideous as Brass would have been better a name.”

That made Kili actually stop and turn to look at the man with his eyes wide in disbelief. “But those are _endearments_! Calling you Mithril would have been like I was presenting you to my uncle as someone I was courting!” He blurted out, then narrowing his eyes in suspicion. “You aren’t trying to _flirt_ with me, are you?”

“I do not know,” said the dragon honestly, tilting his head to express his curiosity. “Am I?”

“Enough of that,” Bilbo butted in, manhandling Kili to continue heading into their former direction. “Look, we’re almost out. Let’s just keep walking.”

“I don’t mean to question the company you choose to keep, Bilbo, but this is some strange man you have befriended.” Kili muttered when they finally made it outside through the huge gates of Erebor, gathering all the looks of the dwarves they passed but not bothering to respond in kind.

“I am painfully aware of that,” Bilbo assured him, breathing in deep the fresh air of the outside world. Oh, it had been such a long, long time since he had last had the opportunity to do that!

They continued to walk in silence for a while, Kili obviously lost deep in some thought, Smaug looking curiously all around him like a newborn and Bilbo just relishing the feel of sun against his invisible skin. Only after quite a lot of a distance had been put between them and the gates of Erebor did Bilbo dare to take his ring off, sighing in relief the moment he became visible again.

“I cannot thank you enough, Kili,” he said before turning to look at Smaug expectantly. “You as well, Mr Holm. We _both_ owe him your well fortunes. I rather think a word of appreciation might be in order.”

Smaug looked down at the hobbit, sniffing as he said, “You must be delusional, my dear Luckwearer, if you honestly think I am ever going to show gratitude towards a _dwarf_.”

“You-!” A nerve had been struck if the enraged look Kili was sporting was anything to base an assumption on, leaving Bilbo to roll his eyes on the stubbornness of both dwarves and dragons.

“Try and behave, children,” the hobbit chided them, trying to look very stern and disapproving since he was lost at being scary and threatening.

It failed to get him the obedience he was after, as the dwarf and the dragon both turned to look at him to say, “I am older than _you_ ,” at the same time, then peeking at their echo from the corner of their eyes.

“Couldn’t really tell,” sighed Bilbo, sorting his priorities so that first on his list was getting these two as far away from each other as possible. “Anyway, I think Mr Holm and I can continue to the settlement of men from here by our twosome.“

“I see.” Looking defeated, Kili’s gaze dropped to the ground. He stole a glance of his kingdom which loomed behind him, every ounce of him seeming reluctant to return there. Bilbo noticed this, of course he did, concern growing within him as he let his hand rest on Kili’s bruised cheek in order to make the dwarf look at him.

“Will you tell me what happened?” he asked gently, running his thumb in soothing circles.

Kili swallowed thickly, trying to laugh it off but not succeeding when the sound broke on its way out and made his eyes water. “I-“ he tried to say, not finding the words from behind the growing lump in his throat.

“It was the brother,” Smaug suddenly said from the background, earning himself a startled look from Kili.

“Mr Holm,” Bilbo said warningly after seeing nothing but confirmation in the way Kili looked crushed and vulnerable at the mention of Fili.

“My past experiences and what Bilbo has muttered to himself about dwarves being stubborn and borderline masochistic hints that this emotional response to being a victim of abuse is more psychological than it is physical. Which in turn means that the wrongdoer was most likely someone he was close to. Someone he trusted.” Scrunching his nose, Smaug spat out the last word, “ _Loved_.”

“That’s quite enough, thank you.” Stepping closer to Kili to both comfort him and to keep the dwarf from attacking the dragon in blind rage, Bilbo tried to have Smaug stop before something got broken.

But the dragon wasn’t done with his analysis. “Furthermore, the leader I was taken to mentioned a brother named Fili. When the leader suggested that the brother was the cause of the damage, our victim here was quick to change the subject, unsubtly trying to protect his abuser because of some emotional attachment. This much was obvious, Bilbo Baggins. What has me puzzled is your need to ask when the answer is right in front of your face.”

“How-? Why-?” Kili almost chocked on his words, voice trembling from either rabidly building anger of absolute mental breakdown. Either way, Bilbo found it alarming.

“How? I paid attention and drew my conclusions. Why?” Smaug looked pensive for a moment, scratching his chin before shrugging like he’d lost all interest in the case. “I know nothing of your brother’s possible motives. Maybe he despises you? That is something I can relate to.”

All the fight that had been building up in Kili vanished at the mention of Fili’s motives. His legs gave out and he fell down on the heavy ground with a look of utter disbelief on his face. Bilbo knelt down beside him quickly, offering whatever comfort he could while glaring daggers at Smaug.

“You said too much,” the hobbit hissed.

“I only voiced the truth,” Smaug countered, crossing his arms in a show of defiance. “Not all of us make well-mannered liars unlike _some_.”

“It’s all right, Bilbo,” Kili interrupted them, speaking to the ground while his hand came to rest on Bilbo’s where it was rubbing his arm to soothe him. He tried to laugh again, but the sound of it was weak and defeated, though heartbreakingly accepting. “Mr Holm was right about everything.”

“No. No, he wasn’t,” said the hobbit while placing a hand on Kili’s shoulder, searching his eyes before continuing. “I can’t deny that it was Fili who hit you if that is the truth, but he does not _despise_ you.”

“You haven’t seen the look in his eyes whenever he sees me,” Kili smiled at him, held back tears reddening his eyes.

“No, but I saw the looks he gave you throughout our journey together.”

While he never knew exactly what to make of those looks, he was absolutely certain that they were promises of utter devotion and eternal loyalty. He’d seen the brothers fight exactly the amount of time he had seen them make up and laugh it off, and while the damage of this fight was considerably more severe than he had ever seen before, Bilbo wanted to have faith in what he had witnessed of their brotherhood during their travels.

Kili didn’t seem to agree, still completely lost no matter how Bilbo tried to tell him that Fili would never hate him.

“You’re leaving, right? Going back home?” Kili said against his murmured assurances.

When Bilbo nodded, the dwarf suddenly grabbed a solid hold of his forearms, desperately pleading, “So take me with you.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Bilbo said shaking his head.

“I can’t stay here!”

“You need to be there for him in case he needs you.”

“I cannot be there for him if he does not _want_ me to be there for him!” Kili almost roared, shaking poor Bilbo like it would help him drive his point through. “They say that I trigger the madness in him, that I should stay well away until it passes. But I’ll keep going back as long as I am here, wanting to see him even though I know the consequences of it!”

“And these consequences are sure to pass, I assure you,” Bilbo murmured, gently prying Kili’s hands away from him and going to stoke his hair to calm him down. “One of these days he’ll snap out of whatever nightmare he’s trapped in and cry for help-“

“ _I_ cried for help when I could not fight his weight off me and his hold on my throat tightened enough so that I could not _breathe_!”

The bruises already told their own story, but hearing from exactly where they had come drained Bilbo of arguments.

“Please, I can’t stay,” Kili asked again, not knowing he had already won. “Be my reason to leave while he will remain my reason to return.”

“Yes,” he agreed with a hitched breath. “Yes, all right then.”

And the smile he got in return was like sunrays trying to push through a heavy mass of rainclouds, barely there but still a strong reminder of what there would be after the storm passed.

 

* * *

 

They had agreed to meet at the edges of the human settlement at the break of the next day. Kili had said that he needed to retrieve his weapons and other equipment for their travels and had headed back to the mountain.

Smaug on the other hand had been a great source of amusement for the humans with his need of clothing. They kept asking uncomfortable questions like where on earth he had lost them in the first place, to which the dragon answered the obvious which was that he hadn’t had any to begin with.

Once again thinking it was more trouble than it was worth, Bilbo tried his best to come up with suitable explanations and have Smaug behave long enough to get him clothed. Once that tedious task had been over and done with, the dragon now dressed in dark fabrics, leather boots and a long coat instead of a measly felt, they sought out food supplies and other necessities.

When morning came, they met with Kili exactly where they had agreed. The dwarf had more bruises on his face than he did yesterday, but the weight on his shoulders seemed to be lighter now than it had since he had woken up after the Battle of Five Armies. His steps were lighter as well as he came down from the mountain humming, stopping absurdly when he spotted Bilbo and Smaug.

“Don’t tell me _he’s_ coming with us?” he asked with his brows furrowed, looking at Smaug from head to toe.

The hobbit and the dragon shared a look.

“At least some of the way?” Bilbo hesitantly said, not having given it much thought. The shrug he got as an answer signed that the dragon didn’t know either. Perhaps they’d just see where their unexpected companionship ended. Wherever that might be, Bilbo just prayed it’d be well before they reached the Shire, as he was positive that a peaceful life in Hobbiton could hardly be appealing to a former calamity.

All of the hobbits, he thought, would probably agree with him.

“Guess I’ll just have to tolerate you then,” Kili huffed, matching Smaug in his lack of pretence that they’d give getting along a shot.

“Oh, do not worry, dwarf, for it is I whose tolerance will suffer the worst strain,” was all the peace Smaug had to offer.

“If I have to listen to this the whole way we travel together then _mark my words_ , I am going to inflict Lobelia upon you and watch from the sidelines as you slowly start to crumble,” Bilbo swore, glaring at them before promptly turning around and starting to walk towards a man he had managed to persuade in giving them a ride to the edges of Mirkwood in his carriage.

“What is a Lobelia?” Kili asked once they were on their way, sitting snuggly in the midst of a variety of uncomfortable things to lean onto aside from each other.

When Bilbo said nothing, having grown an attitude after all the not getting along business, Smaug gave the answer a go. “Sounded rather like a disease. Perhaps one that affects our outer appearance if it will have us _crumble_.”

“Yeah, right!” Snorting, Kili grinned at the hobbit. “Like Bilbo would ever threaten us with something like that.”

“Lobelia is the plague of the Shire,” Bilbo murmured lowly, eyes empty as he shivered. “One that slowly drives you to insanity.”

He managed to conceal his grin well enough to let the knowledge of Lobelia set into his two companions. Oh, they still doubted him, but it had them quiet down and that was really all Bilbo was asking for.

 

* * *

 

Smaug looked at the forest like he had never seen one before. The trees were tall and thick and just as dark and looming as they had been the last time the Company of Thorin Oakenshield were about to enter them.

“What’s the matter?” Kili asked from beside him, having chosen to stay with Bilbo’s odd friend while the hobbit had gone to talk to some elves. Apparently their burglar had some suspicious businesses to deal with before they left, thus the reason they had come to the edges of the forest to seek out the elves that preferred the greenery over the human settlement despite the distances it had them travel.

“I have never seen trees from this point of view,” the man said, neck straining as he kept looking at the treetops.

“The more I spend time with you the odder you get, Mr Holm.” Keeping himself from chuckling, for that would almost feel like he was being familiar with the man like he would be with someone he actually got along with, Kili shook his head and tried not to wonder about all the things queer about his new companion.

“Maybe I should be a forestful of them?” The man said absently.

“What?”

“Mr Holm in plural.”

“Holmes, is it?” Kili asked with a raised brow.

“I think the plural is either holm oaks or holm trees, actually.” They turned around to see Bilbo approaching with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry about this. There’s a little matter that needs to be dealt with before we leave.”

Completely dismissing the apology and their reasons for stopping where they had, the man turned to look at the forest again. “I will take Holmes despite its grammatical inaccuracy.”

“Well met, Mr Holmes,” grinned Kili. “I suppose there’s no asking what your real name is?”

“I suppose not.”

“Look at the two of you getting all chummy!” Clapping his hands to express how delighted he was about it, Bilbo paid no mind to the looks of utter disagreement that his comment received. “Perhaps there is hope that our journey will be a pleasant one after all.”

“Remember how you believed the worst to be behind us after we had escaped the Goblin Town?” Kili asked while giving the hobbit a pointed look.

It led to an argument about many a thing that had happened on their journey, mostly concerning the stupidity of dwarves and the suspicious natures of hobbits.

Smaug stayed quiet while his two companions kept remembering, having nothing to say of what had happened during the time he had been asleep. It was all fee information, besides, getting to just listen to their personal affairs. Idly he wondered if what he was hearing and learning could be later on exploited against the dwarven prince somehow. His reactions to verbal abuse were quite amusing, after all.

A certain amount of restlessness could be spotted among the elves to which Bilbo had been talking earlier, Smaug being the only one to pay enough attention to his surroundings to notice it. They halted their talking and bowed down deep when an important looking elf made an appearance, nodding to his subjects before starting to make his way to the trio of mixed races.

Bilbo and Kili were still very engrossed in their conversation about why a handkerchief would be an essential part of traveling, when the tall elf stopped beside them, clearing his throat meaningfully to get their attention. Somewhere behind him a redheaded female covered her mouth and swallowed down a laugh.

“Thranduil!” Bilbo more or less squawked in his surprise, ears reddening from the embarrassment of being borderline rude. “I mean- apologies, your highness, and thank you for coming to see me.”

“There is hardly any need for such formalities, Bilbo Baggins. I am always delighted to see you,” said the elven king with his monotone voice which made him sound even more formal than Bilbo. “Especially if you have come to deliver the payment you promised me in exchange of healing the dwarves.”

Kili’s ears twitched and he grew very attentive indeed, having heard from his uncle how the elves had come and healed them while someone else was apparently paying the fares for it. Immediately his distrust towards the elves grew no matter if they had saved his life as well as the lives of the ones he held closest to his heart.

“About that…” Looking sheepish, Bilbo’s hand went to rub at the back of his head. “I hadn’t the time or opportunity to find anything suitable. I’m sorry.”

“These are ill news indeed,” Thranduil said, although there was a small twitch at the corner of his mouth.

The signs of mirth were so miniscule and passed so quickly that Kili had missed them completely, stepping protectively in front of his hobbit friend to face the threat of an elven kingdom for him.

“This is not a debt Bilbo should be paying you in the first place,” he growled, glaring at the king while receiving no hostility in return.

“Perhaps not, Crown Prince Kili,” Thranduil agreed, tilting his head as he asked, “Not if you are willing to pay the price yourself?”

Gulping before gathering himself into a spine straight posture of utter defiance, Kili nodded, “I am.”

The elven king hummed low in his throat, holding his hands behind his back as he started to slowly circle the dwarven prince, assessing, considering. Not once letting Thranduil out of his sight, Kili tilted his head just enough so that he could glare at the other from the corner of his eye.

“Well?” he demanded impatiently. “Name your price!”

“The ornament in your hair,” Thranduil finally said after a small stillness. His answer had Kili’s eyes widen, and hesitantly he took a step back, hand going to cover the clip at the back of his head.

“Why?” He asked.

“I named my price,” was all the explanation the elf gave. “Are you unwilling to pay it?”

“But it’s just a piece of scrap metal!”

“I rather think the elf is after the obvious sentimental value of it,” Holmes said from somewhere well away from the conversation being held. The comment had Thranduil raise a brow at the human, his gaze soon returning to Kili who was obviously struggling with whatever was going through his mind.

“I understand if you find yourself unable to give it away. It would not be the first time a dwarf has gone back on his word.” There was both consolation and taunt in the way Thranduil spoke, though none of the witnesses found themselves surprised when Kili could hear nothing but the latter.

“Fine!” the dwarven prince shouted, ripping the ornament off his hair and holding it in a tight fist in front of the elf. “Have your payment, and do keep in mind that the line of Durin keep their words and pay their debts!”

“Kili, you don’t have to. I’ll just-“ Bilbo tried to come between them when the piece of metal exchanged owners, Thranduil looking oddly pleased at having acquired such an item.

“It’s fine, Bilbo,” Kili said through a forced grin full of teeth. “Nothing but a piece of scrap metal as I said. Best I let go, right?”

Bilbo could not agree less, but there was no time to argue when Thranduil bid them a quiet farewell before leaving, and Kili turning away from him in an obvious mood of not wanting to talk about it. With a sigh, the hobbit accepted the situation for what it was and allowed his thoughts to be consumed by the thoughts of home and how to get there.

 

* * *

 

Bard the Bowman sat down at the opposite end of the table, sighing gratefully like a man who was finally done with a long and tedious task. Thorin too had been anticipating this one last meeting, having reluctantly supervised a large amount of treasure being transported out of Erebor just to lead to this day when he finally got what was promised to him in return.

“I thank you for your cooperation and wish that our alliance will thrive in the future,” Bard said as he took a bundle of cloth from out of his pocket, placing it on the table in front of Thorin.   

When Thorin showed no sign that he was going to touch it, Bard started to unwrap it, keeping his eyes on his task while casually saying, “Word is that a hobbit was seen leaving with a young dwarf and a man.”

The cloth was drawn away from what it had been hiding underneath it, revealing the shine of the Heart of the Mountain, its beauty and brilliance making many a dwarf gasp at the sight of it. Still, Thorin made no movement to hold it in his arms when Bard gave one last nod and stood to leave.

For looking at the Arkenstone now, it seemed to be just as its name suggested: A stone.

Nothing more.


End file.
